CLFP Opposes State Water Board Revised Enforcement Policy

On April 4, the State Water Resources Control Board adopted several revisions to its Enforcement Policy regarding financial penalties for violations of the State Water Code or Federal Clean Water Act. The Board has been expanding its enforcement staff and their activities, and the change in policy is designed to increase penalties for violations.

Under the prior policy that was adopted in 2010, dischargers that did not have a history of violations could receive some consideration when the board calculated penalties for new violations. In those cases, the "History of Violations" factor multiplier could be set at a value of less than one at the discretion of the board. The new rule stipulates that dischargers with no history of violations will be assigned a factor of one, eliminating the option of acknowledging a good compliance history with a lesser factor. CLFP opposed this change and requested that the enforcement staff have the discretion to assign multipliers of less than one to acknowledge past compliance and cooperation.

The 2010 Enforcement Policy stipulated that dischargers with a track record of violations could be assigned a "History of Violations" factor of up to 1.5 to increase the severity of the penalty. The new rule states that the board should use a minimum multiplier of 1.1 and eliminated the 1.5 ceiling. This change does not provide the regulatory staff with sufficient guidance as to appropriate maximum penalty levels, and without a prescribed ceiling unreasonably high and arbitrary factors could be assigned. CLFP and other organizations opposed this change.